1st Time Smoker (whole chicken)

[DrRosenrosen]

Hey everyone. I was steered this way by my younger brother (who is way more experienced at all things grilling/smoking) after I began peppering him with texts/questions regarding smoking meats. My brother in law recently upgraded his smoker game & passed on to me his first smoker (a Char Broil Big Easy) so I'm tackling my first smoking experience this weekend. The wife bought a whole chicken (just under 5#) that I'm going to attempt to make edible & I need help/tips/recs/prayers.

I'm open to all suggestions.... choice of wood, rubs, temp/time, criticisms/positives about the Big Easy (it was free so I'm not complaining), etc. Thanks. I appreciate y'all!

 

[Nefarious]

Welcome, you are in the right place as you will soon find out. Is it just you and wife eating or will others be involved? My first was also a chicken and people here gave me great advice.

 

[bauchjw]

Welcome! I’d recommend spatchcocking the chicken so it looks like below. You basically cut the backbone out. I think a basic salt/pepper/ and granulated onion/garlic rub is awesome, but there are tons of good poultry rubs and recipes for rubs out there. Mesquite wood or a fruit wood will be good wood to use, but is personal preference. make sure you have a probe to put into the breast, to get a good internal temperature (IT) of 160 degree for white meat. Cook at a higher temperature to crisp the skin, rubbery skin is often a problem with poultry smoked at lower temps. I don’t know anything about your smoker, sorry! Good luck!

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

Could you give us some info on your smoker. Some pics would be great.

 

[daspyknows]

My chicken process is an overnight brine, then I spatchcock the bird and apply rub. Then I smoke at about 250 until the IT is about 120. At that point I increase the temp to about 350 to finish to get the skin all crispy.

 

[schlotz]

Is this your smoker?

 

[normanaj]

In my Masterbuilt Electric Smoker(MES) and my Weber Smoky Mountain(WSM) I do whole chickens vertically.Some refer to it as "beer can" style cooking...I have a stand that slides right into the cavity of the bird.The legs/thighs are closer to the heat source with the breast being furthest from it.I've not had one come out bad doing it this way.

 

[SmokingUPnorth]

Wood I use on chicken are apple and cherry. They are pretty light and chicken really takes on a lot of smoke so you don’t need too much smoke. For your first smoke I’d say keep it simple, spatchcock is pretty simple and you can see how to do it on YouTube. I smoke them as high as your smoker will go. Maybe like 300*. That will give it better crunchy skin. If your smoker won’t go that high and you have a grill also you can throw it on a hot grill for the last pet ti crispen up the skin so it’s not rubbery.

 

[mcokevin]

Welcome to SMF! A whole chicken is a great entry into smoking. They don't take too long and it's a pretty forgiving bird. It's a great way to get your feet under you before you try longer smokes like a pork shoulder or some less forgiving cuts like ribs or a brisket.

Personally I use the dry rub from this recipe if I am doing BBQ chicken. I've got a mojo rub that works out great too, I do that one when my MIL is here as she can't have some of the spices in a BBQ rub. I forget where I got the mojo recipe so can't give proper credit, so I won't post it here, but PM me if you want it. For the BBQ rub I posted I ignore everything else on that recipe except the dry rub. I agree with SmokingUPnorth and also use lighter woods with chicken. I run anywhere from 250-275, you can probably go as high as 300 without any issue and should be done in about 3 hrs +/- 30 min depending what you're running at.

 

[tallbm]

Hey everyone. I was steered this way by my younger brother (who is way more experienced at all things grilling/smoking) after I began peppering him with texts/questions regarding smoking meats. My brother in law recently upgraded his smoker game & passed on to me his first smoker (a Char Broil Big Easy) so I'm tackling my first smoking experience this weekend. The wife bought a whole chicken (just under 5#) that I'm going to attempt to make edible & I need help/tips/recs/prayers.

I'm open to all suggestions.... choice of wood, rubs, temp/time, criticisms/positives about the Big Easy (it was free so I'm not complaining), etc. Thanks. I appreciate y'all!

Hi there and welcome!

As you can see there are some common themes popping up amongst the great advise being given.

I looked up the Big Easy and provided it does it's job then I would recommend the following:

• Smoking Temp: 325F degrees, this will be the temp you cook at and should guarantee you do NOT get rubber/leather skin. Poultry skin turns out rubbery when not cooked at a high enough temp
  
  
• Chicken Finish Temp: 163F degrees deep in the breast, Chicken is never done by time, only by temp. At 163F deep in the breast you can pull the chicken it will likely still rise in temp to 165F which is the target temp but you want to avoid going over 165F in the breast
  
  
• Prep: Whole chickens and chicken breast should really be brined to avoid drying out and being tasteless. You get the best results with a simple brine, hands down.
  • Brine: You have about a 5 pound bird. Place the whole chicken into a container or pot that can fit in your fridge, hold the bird, and hold 1 gallon of water.
    • Measure out 97 grams of salt. Why 97gms?
      1 gallon of water = about 8 lbs and you have a 5lbs chicken for a total of 13lbs of stuff to fit in the container/pot. You want 1.65% of that weight in salt. Convert 13lbs to grams = 5902gms and multiply by 0.0165 and you get 97.383. So 97gms of salt for brining :)
    • Put the chicken in the empty pot/container
    • Now time to dissolve the salt into the water and add to the container with the chicken.
      Start measuring out your gallon of water (32-64 oz at a time) and pour that water and add as much of your 97gm of salt as makes sense into a blender, and blend to dissolve the salt. Pour the blended water + salt into the container with the chicken
      • Repeat until all of the salt is dissolved and added to the container. Then add any remaining water to the container without salt until your 1 gallon of water has been added.
    • Let the chicken sit in the fridge 24hrs or so. You can get away with 12 hours but it will not be as good as 24hrs. Many people say they get a different texter in chicken meat if they go over 24hrs, but rarely go over 24hrs and I can't remember having a different texture. Plus I cure my meat now so it's apples to oranges comparison. Just go 12-24hrs here lol.
      
  • Spatchcocking: With your smoker this is not an option as you cannot lay the bird flat in your smoker. It is an excellent approach for anyone who has a smoker that can handle a flattened out bird (because the back is cut out), your smoker just cannot accommodate this.
    
• Seasoning/Rub: I suggest keeping this simple. Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic, and Paprika. Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic is often referred to as SPOG here on the forum and is basically the base of any meat seasoning/rub.
  ***IMPORTANT: If you Brined then DO NOT add anymore salt. All of your salt came from the brine.
  When the brine period is done, simply pull the bird out of the brine and season all over with Pepper, Onion, Garlic, and Paprika. How much? The bird will only take so much seasoning so put each layer on to leave room for the next layer and when its got a layer of each and really no more room for more seasoning then u are done! Season the inside of the bird too if you like/can.
  
  If you go this route and avoid buying a seasoning/rub then you know you can season up any poultry with amazing flavor at anytime as long as you have the spices in your cabinet. Super simple!
  
  
• Wood: The answer for me here is simple but the way to make it happen is more difficult hahaha. The answer: 65% Hickory, 35% any of these or a combo of them to make up the 35%: Maple, Cherry, or Apple. This will be a fairly short smoke (2.5-3hrs) so having more of a stronger wood over that small amount of time will help with smoke flavor
  
  The more difficult part is whether you are using wood chips or pellets.
  Wood chips are generally 100% of the wood on the label.
  Pellets generally are not UNLESS you are buying the Lumberjack brand or the Perfect Pellet brand. Pellets are often blended where the wood name on the bag is like 25-35% of the wood on label/bag and then the rest is oak or alder or maple.
  
  According to the video I saw when I looked up your smoker they claim pellets will smoke for way longer than wood chips. A bag of pellets also lasts FOREVER with the way your smoker produces smoke.
  
  So what to choose? I think chips to start with. If you can get a small bag of Hickory chips and another small bag of Cherry or Apple or Maple chips then go that route. Also Cherry gives a great mahogany color to meat so that is added bonus for the appearance.
  Later when you get your head wrapped around using your smoker and do a little bit of reading here on pellets, you can make the switch over to pellets so you get the advantage of them burning longer, getting more for your $, and being able to babysit your smoker less. I also think that once you nail a few smokes on that machine of yours you will want to upgrade to a smoker that is a little bit bigger so you can do things like whole racks of ribs, 9lbs+ pork butts, and maybe even a whole packer brisket some day :)

Well man I've thrown a ton at you with lots of detail. Ask as many questions as you have and I hope this all helps :)

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

DrRosenrosen , as tallbm suggested, brining a whole yardbird is the way to go.
If you do decide to brine, just make sure the container you use is non-reactive. Plastic and/or stainless steel are fine. Do not use any thing made out of aluminum.

 

[WV_Crusader]

I brine my birds with Game Changer from Oak Ridge BBQ. Then season with various things and get creative!

 

[DrRosenrosen]

Damn y'all! Bringing the heat right out the gate. I love it. All great advice and all appreciated. I'll keep y'all posted on how things turn out. My supportive wife says she's nervous for all of us.

 

[pineywoods]

Damn y'all! Bringing the heat right out the gate. I love it. All great advice and all appreciated. I'll keep y'all posted on how things turn out. My supportive wife says she's nervous for all of us.

Welcome to SMF glad you joined us
You will certainly get lots of advice and almost always a lot of different advice. Just remember there are many different ways to do things and end up with great results.
I would highly suggest a journal or log. Write down the info about all your smokes then you can go back and figure out what you like and what you don't until you come up with "your way"

 

[DrRosenrosen]

Welcome to SMF glad you joined us
You will certainly get lots of advice and almost always a lot of different advice. Just remember there are many different ways to do things and end up with great results.
I would highly suggest a journal or log. Write down the info about all your smokes then you can go back and figure out what you like and what you don't until you come up with "your way"

That’s great advice. I am way too disorganized to attempt to pull this off without good record keeping.

 

[WV_Crusader]

My wife looked at me like i fell off the rocker when i made a Q Journal. But now she just wants only the best food so she says for me to keep it “Rollin’ thin n’ Blue”

 

[pineywoods]

Record as much as you can type meat, type rub, type wood chips or pellets used, temps and your thoughts on maintaining the temps, finished temp, and whatever else you can think of that may help down the road.
It's hard to remember what you did smoke to smoke after awhile so the notes help and after getting several smokes of the same product done you will also have a pretty good idea of time to prepare the meal but always go by internal temp and not time again so you can repeat your results

 

[schlotz]

If by chance you use an app to store all your recipes, hopefully it allows notes to be applied to each. This is what I do for my journaling. I keep adding notes, that includes the date of each smoke along with the details.

 

[mcokevin]

Smoking Temp: 325F degrees, this will be the temp you cook at and should guarantee you do NOT get rubber/leather skin. Poultry skin turns out rubbery when not cooked at a high enough temp

Nice - I am going to have to try this. I don't know that I've smoked chicken as high as 325. The skin on smoked chicken hasn't bothered me at lower temps but this certainly sounds worth trying.

 

[JLeonard]

Welcome to the forums. Glad you joined up. I will tell ya..There is a million years of smoking/cooking experience on here all told. I have learned a ton from the folks on here. Dont hesitate to ask questions and the search option will be your best friend also. We like pics (visually oriented here), so brush up on your pic taking skills. Look forward to your posts and pics.
Jim